Discussion: User Video Index

User Video Index - FAQ - Lounge - BassBuzz Forum

Lett me know what you think.

  • Does this get the job done?
  • Is there anything I missed?
  • Anything I should take out?
1 Like

THIS IS ONLY A TEST FOR AN UPCOMING PROJECT.
THE IDEAS DISCUSSED HERE ARE NOT IN EFFECT YET.
I’m still trying to get all the kinks worked out.

Welcome to the User Video Index - FAQ!

Where you will find answers to all of these GREAT frequently asked questions…

  • What is this?
  • How does this work?
  • This sounds hard. Is this hard?
  • I’m trying to play Bass! Not forum organizer.
  • How does this help me?
  • How does this help the community?
  • How does this help beginner Bass players?
  • Does it have to be videos?
  • Why is this organized… like this?
  • How can I participate?
  • How do I keep it updated?
    And…
  • What else makes this so… stinking… cool?

What is this?

  • As the forum has grown there have been a number of different topics inviting users to post their own video or audio of them playing. Some of those topics have grown quite large. To a degree that it has become very difficult to find a specific video. This index is meant to keep an organized record of all those videos.

How does this work?.

  • When you post a video in a topic you also post that link on your personal page in the User Video Index category.
  • The topics, such as Post your covers! or the individual song topics in the 50 Songs Challenge category are used normally.
  • In an effort to keep the index as user friendly as possible, it is not intended to replace any other category or topic. For instance, you would not post your cover of House of the Rising Sun in this category and expect to get any feedback from the community. Instead you should post it in Song 7 - “House of the Rising Sun” by The Animals. Then you would go to your personal topic in the User Video Index and either add a link to your post in Song 7 - “House of the Rising Sun” by The Animals or just copy the same link you used when you posted it over there.

This sounds hard. Is this hard?

  • Not at all. Whenever you post a video, you add few more clicks and a copy-paste and you’re all up to date.
  • If you want to see what it looks like, click here… “@JoshFossgreen - User Video Index”

I’m trying to play BASS! Not forum organizer.

  • Dude! I get it. Playing Bass is a lot better than almost anything else. However, this is a community and sometimes it helps for people to get organized to keep a community running smoothly.

How does this help me?

  • It gives you a central reference point for all the videos you post. Regardless of which topic they may have been originally posted in. It’s a single stop for you to review your work and see your progress. It’s also a centralized place where you can point others for them to witness the depth and breadth of your BadAss-ed-ness.

How does this help the BassBuzz community?

  • None of us got to where we are, alone. Sometimes we help others and sometimes we need help. This index is a testament to the community we have all worked so hard to build. As much as it will show the progress and accomplishments of the individual, the collection, taken in its entirety, shows how far we have come as a community.

How does this help beginner Bass players?

  • One of the big things for new bass players (or players of any instrument) is trying to gain some perspective on what all this hard work will accomplish. It helps to answer the question, “What will all this effort really allow me to achieve?” By putting together this index, I think it will give a pretty good answer to what it means to go from Beginner to BadAss!

Does it have to be videos?

  • Nope. Not at all. If you have audio without video, that is perfectly acceptable. We had to call it something and since most of the music users post is in video format, that’s where the name landed.

Why is this organized… like this?

  • It’s organized the way it is for two reasons; searchability, and distribution of effort.
  • If you want to find anyone’s videos all you have to do is click on the search function, type in User Video Index and the @Username for the person you’re searching for.
  • By having each person manage their own videos it keeps from placing too big of a burden on one person.

How can I participate?

  • I’m glad you asked. It’s simple! Just join by creating your own Topic in this Category following the below format.
  • Topic Name: @Username - User Video Index
  • Category: User Video Index
  • Body: Add links to all your videos, one per line, or every other line, or use bullet points, or whatever you like.

How do I keep it updated?

  • You can go back to the original post and use the EDIT feature, at any time, to add new links to your videos.

What else makes this so… stinking… cool?

  • If you go into your profile, there is an option to post a Featured Topic that shows up anytime someone looks at your profile. You can add your @Username - User Video Index topic to your profile. So everybody can find your videos from there also! Whaaaaaat? Now, that is cool. :sunglasses:

Thanks to everyone for your help in doing this. If you have any questions or think of something I’ve missed, leave a comment below.

16 Likes

The only thing that is a bit weird to me is that you will get a lot of duplicate posts. For example, when I do a 50 song challenge I’ll post a video in the songs thread and then post the same video in my user video thread. People that are browsing unread topics will see it come up twice. Not a big deal, but just something that comes to mind.

2 Likes

You’re a wizard, man!

Someone should give you a promotion :grin:

9 Likes

Great job Eric @eric.kiser ,
You have done an excellent job on this,
Cheers Brian

6 Likes

Thanks Jörg! And I’ll take that promotion!

Thanks for reading through it.

You caught me. It was getting so long I worried I was creating a wall of text that would just make people’s eyes bleed and I hadn’t figure out how to tackle explaining that part.

The intent is for you to edit the original post in your “@JT - User Video Index” topic. Editing a post won’t cause it to show up. If you add a post to your topic it will.

I put this part in to cover that but I haven’t figured out how to explain the intent to keep what you’re talking about from happening.

For this to work all updates need to happen in the original post. If people start adding posts for new entries instead of modifying the original post it’s going to become too messy to be usable.

Part of my concern with doing it this way is that, invariably, people are going to post replies in these threads. Which is fine, unless the updates also end up being posted as replies. At that point it will look like any other thread and this attempt at organization becomes moot.

Okay, I just had a thought.
@JoshFossgreen if you lock a topic, no more replies can be made. That would solve the reply problem. But, can the originator of a topic still edit the original post on a locked topic.

My first guess would be, No. But, if they can that would simplify some of this.

If a test is required, feel free to lock this topic and I’ll see what it will let me get away with.

5 Likes

Ah, didn’t think of that. So what we really want to do is if we are posting it in another thread, then just edit our OP in our video thread and add it for reference. If we AREN’T posting it in another thread then add a reply to our video thread and add it for reference to the OP as well. Then it both situations people get notified only once of a new video. Sounds good to me.

Assumes our threads aren’t locked of course. I don’t mind a discussion about videos in our threads. I think that makes sense to me. For some, this may be the only place they put their videos and receive feedback. As long as the OP is updated, I don’t see an issue leaving them unlocked. Just my opinion of course.

4 Likes

Thank you for sorting this @eric.kiser
You da man!

3 Likes

@TNKA36 @John_E Thanks for all the support everybody.

Crap. I hadn’t thought about that. What I usually see in the forum is people congregating. The idea being there would be a thread you participate in and User Video Index threads would be just for reference.

Implementing this could also take away from what we have that works well right now.

For instance…

I create @eric.kiser - User Video Index
I post all of my videos in that thread
I join in on the 50 Songs Challenge
I post a link to in Song 3 - “Crazy” by Gnarls Barkley to my video on the @eric.kiser - User Video Index
Now somebody going through the “Crazy” thread has to make a decision.
Do I leave the “Crazy” thread to watch Eric’s video or do I skip it and keep going in the “Crazy” thread?
If I proceed on then the likelihood I will go back to watch it is pretty close to zero for most people.
If I follow the link, how much time do I spend there, instead of doing what I wanted which was keep up with everybody in the “Crazy” thread.
I think the same would be true for any of the dedicated threads.

My point is that if people use the User Video Index in this way, which seems intuitive, it will disrupt the flow of how people use the forum. This seems counterproductive to implement something that will disrupt the carefully designed flow of Discourse. Which works remarkably well.

Does this make sense?

I feel like I’m still missing a few pieces to be able to figure out what all the missing pieces are for making this idea functional and productive without being disruptive.

Optimally, this would be handled by one or a few people updating a master index, alphabetized by username. That would seem to provide the most consistent and useable resource for the community. Unfortunately, having a team of users work on something like this doesn’t seem to be a viable alternative right now.

2 Likes

I don’t think it will disrupt the flow if you do what I suggested:

You have a video to post…

A) If you are posting to a thread outside of your User Video Index, post your video in that thread and the edit your OP in your User Video Index and add it there as well.

B) Else, reply to your User Video Index with a post of your video AND also add it to your OP in your User Video Index.

In both situations, users only get notified of a new post one time and the video is within the intended thread. Also, the main list in the OP of the User Video Index is updated in both routes.

I think that deals with it, but I could easily be missing something! :slight_smile:

Note, I’m assuming we can post as many videos as possible into one thread. And the initial thread will be massive if it has embedded videos and not links to the posts containing the videos. Maybe that is what you mean, if I have a link in the OP to another thread where the video is then I’m in that thread?

1 Like

I think your assessment of what needs to happen is spot on.

My concern comes from this part…

I’ve never been a forum administrator but I’ve heard some tales that all come back to the phrase “herding cats”.

Building it won’t take much time.
Getting people to use it shouldn’t take too much effort.
Making sure people use it as intended… that might be a challenge. :rofl:

Just to be clear, for anyone reading this, my concern is not about the people on the forum today, but about how you keep all the cats going in the same direction for the next six months, one year, two years…

I think that’s what has been stalling my brain. Over the long term, how do you make sure people do what has been suggested.

I am, perhaps, a bit sensitive on the issue because I am a guest in Josh’s house and I don’t want to be responsible for junking up his forum or creating difficulties down the road.

Thanks for taking the time to respond to all this @JT. I think it’s time for me to get some sleep and I’ll ponder this more tomorrow.

4 Likes

@eric.kiser
I’m a little corn-fused… which category do we start in? “Lounge”? or will you be creating a new category? I have all my videos in a text file that I keep track of readily available to cut and paste to try this out.

2 Likes

Hey Jerry.

There has been discussion about creating a whole new category for this. It’s not quite ready yet. I just posted the test document here to get feedback and try to work out all the kinks first.

3 Likes

Roger that. I’ll wait for the category to be created. I think this is an excellent way to get access to everyone’s videos.

2 Likes

I went back and added a disclaimer to the top so as to head off any potential confusion.

I’m glad to hear people are interested! :grinning::+1:

3 Likes

I’ll second what Jörg said above, @eric.kiser . . . :slight_smile:

You should get a promotion for all the work you do to keep these Forums organized and coherent . . . :+1:

Cheers
Joe

5 Likes

You are completely right. I was a moderator on a forum for a massive game being developed with thousands of active users. Apart from general stuff, I also maintained a master index of every user idea/suggestion, with a link to where it was suggested. I also kept track of the developer response and which ideas had been accepted/refused. Let me just say, its quite a pain in the ass to do this sort of stuff. :slight_smile:

And you will never get everyone to do whatever the plan is. That’s just the nature of something that is voluntary. I think the key is that it is an improvement from today. I think you are on the right track for that.

4 Likes

Thanks for doing this @eric.kiser. I’m sorry I’m not helping you as I said I would when I shared this idea with you.
Let me know if I can help.

5 Likes

I would help but I have no idea how to do any of this right!

6 Likes

Thanks, for your hard work. You got my vote for CEO.:+1::+1: :beers:

6 Likes